


time is never frozen

by KatnissPotter1



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Drinking, Drug Use, I know you can abuse them, Liam is mentioned, Lots of cigarettes too, M/M, Oneshot, Sad Harry, Smoking, but that's not the case here, i needed to write so here, so not drug abuse, they're prescription drugs that are actually prescribed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 07:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1297009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatnissPotter1/pseuds/KatnissPotter1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry's obsessed with time and Louis' a little bit broken and not everything in the world is happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

One of the strangest things about time is how it just keeps going. 

People die and babies are born and girls are kissed and the stars light up the sky in London while in America rush hour's going on. Time will not operate on anyone's scale but her own. She will just keep running and running and if you want her to slow down she'll just laugh at you but if you want her to speed up she exhales in your face with the smell of a stale cigarette. 

Harry is thinking all of these things as he sits in his house, watching his clock go tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock, never intending on stopping. 

Sometimes Harry wonders why his time seems to be stretching out so long but at the same time he feels like he was ten years old just last week and it's probably something everybody thinks and that's just Harry, isn't it? He doesn't have an original bone in his body. 

He thought he used to. When he was at school and he was always 'a pleasure to have in class' and the one with the perfect grades and the perfect college application with just the right amount of honors and community service and the one who always sat alone in the lunch room. 

He thought he knew himself then. He thought that was getting the fuck out of his little town once and for all and never looking back. He thought that he would excel at uni, he thought that he would get the perfect degree and get the perfect job for the perfect salary to find the perfect wife and have perfect kids and and and and and. 

But that was before the clock inside of Harry broke. 

That was before all of Harry's numbers fell out of his eyes at three in the morning and all the little ticks inside of him keeping him alive flew out of his finger tips to join the ducks flying away in winter and would never return to him. 

But now Harry's clock is broken and he can't fix it. Nobody can. Harry has driven everyone he loves away because when they hug him and cuddle him and stare into his eyes after sharing a cigarette late at night they don't see. They can't see him because Harry Styles is gone. He flew away to drown in the ocean and has left this hollow shell of a boy behind to fend for himself. 

Harry wishes he could find himself again. He wants to. But for now he just buys cigarettes and beer from the brown-eyed doe boy behind the counter of the convenience store and if Harry were in the business of it he would write soppy schoolgirl poems of how he is probably a lonely boy. 

But soppy-doe-eyed boy has looks that deceive him because one day Harry comes in the store to find a hurricane of a human with him. 

Harry knows he's a hurricane because Harry is a thunderstorm and they're not supposed to clash, are they? 

"Oops." Harry mumbles as he nearly drops the six pack he'd just bought on the other. Harry was always a clumsy thing, but now he looked like a drunk clumsy thing and he wishes he had more originality than oops. 

"Hi." Hurricane Boy grins at him and Harry wishes he had thought more about brushing his teeth instead of broken clock faces. Harry doesn't smile back. He's very aware that he has coffee stains all over his teeth. 

"I'm Louis." Hurricane boy has a name now. More than doe-eyes does, anyway. 

"Harry." He grunts, still trying to keep his face turned away. Beautiful hurricane boys don't talk to thunderstorms like Harry. Hurricane boys talk to other hurricane boys or sunlight girls and take them on wild, wild adventures while keeping calm on the inside. Hurricanes and thunderstorms don't mix. 

"I like that name. It suits you, because you have a lot of hair." He reaches out to pull at one of Harry's curls and the boy wouldn't mind ordinarily but right now all he can feel is greasy greasy greasy. 

"Thanks." Harry says, finally paying for his cigarettes before Hurricane Louis can touch him again. He hurries out, once again cursing time and how he seems to run out at the unluckiest moments.

"See you, Curly Harry!" Louis says cheerfully to Harry's back. 

~

And they do see each other again. 

This time Harry is outside on his shitty little porch and drinking and looking up at the stars and wondering how people could always pick out the shapes in them because all Harry sees is a thick black blanket smothering the city and very few little pinpricks of light shining through to greet him and taunt him. They're saying, "Ha. Look at you down there with nothing. Look at us up here, surviving despite all your pollution." Harry wishes he had a gun to shoot at the stars and himself. 

He doesn't look up until he hears footsteps. And yeah, despite Harry's drinking and the habits he tends to have in his house when he's drunk, he's not the worst of this neighborhood. 

But it's Hurricane Louis, and what do you know. He's smoking. Harry didn't know hurricanes featured fire. 

He's on the phone, but he's too far away for Harry to make out what words he's saying. At least until he shouts furious curses and okay, he had to have made some of those up. But then the beautiful boy is crying and Harry's thinking of time again and maybe she meant for them to meet up here. Or was that fate?

But either way, Harry leaves his porch and goes inside. He can't help Hurricanes. 

Even if they make his chest ache and remind him of the boy he used to be. 

~

Hurricane boy is red eyes and weak smiles when Harry sees him. He's with doe-eyed boy the next time Harry gets cigarettes. 

He looks like a proper wreck, and Harry thinks about sadness. How it can feel like everything coming down to pile all over you in a random occurrence or it can feel like nothing, nothing at all. It could be something as simple as finding out your fish has died because you overfed it and showed it too much affection or because your mother has died and with her all the light has disappeared. 

Harry doesn't ask and Louis doesn't tell, and, well. That's about how their relationship goes so far. 

~

Louis and Harry finally exchange numbers the next time they see each other. 

This time it's in a dingy alleyway near the shitty movie theater in their town. Louis isn't crying and he's not sad. He looks giddy, though his eyes are bloodshot. Harry wishes he could afford to get high like that. 

"Hayyyyyyy." Louis giggles at him, drawing the word out. Harry wonders if he mistook high for drunk. He tries to walk away, but Louis reaches out and plucks him up like a flower. Harry hates flower metaphors, even if that wasn't a metaphor at all. Harry hates flowers. 

"How come you didn't talk to me? Where Liam works? You're very pretty, y'know, but you look sad. Why are you sad?" He asks a billion questions and doesn't let Harry leave until he's scribbled something on his arm. 

~ 

Harry doesn't see the Hurricane boy until it's late at night and really, that should be their time because although Harry doesn't know Louis it would seem that they must have something in common because this time they meet outside of Harry's favorite pub.

This time it's Harry that's smoking and no, he hasn't been drinking although he wishes he was. He's trying to stop drinking so heavily and figured a good long smoke might help him. 

Evidently Louis hasn't been drinking either because he quite coherently asks Harry if he could bum a light off him, and the boy with greasy curls gives him one because really, it's like an unwritten smoker law if you have a way to help someone light up you do it. 

The conversation doesn't continue until Harry is lighting up his third cigarette of the evening. 

"Do you think it's weird how they make unnatural light look like the sun when it's dark out?" Louis asks. Harry peers up at the street light he's referring to and shrugs. 

"Maybe that was the point." He answers. "Maybe they wanted people in the dark to find some comfort without burning themselves up in the sun."

"I don't really like the sun either way." Louis says, and they look at each other. 

"Me either." Harry replies. "I'm not a big fan of any light, really." 

"Would make sense for you. You have that broody, stormy look about you. I don't think I've ever seen you smile." Louis says, and Harry might have found that weird if they were actually in the daylight. 

"I don't smile because I don't have anything to be happy about." Harry replies honestly, taking another drag. 

"That's a shame. You look like if you were happy the whole world would be happy." Louis says, and Harry turns to find him much closer than before. 

"You should write. You sound like a poet." Harry says, keeping his eyes on the top of Louis' hair. He's a bit shorter than him and that's at his eye level so. It's interesting hair to look at, really. At least it's clean. 

"Tried, and, well. I guess you're the only one that thinks I sound like a poet and not like a drunk." Louis shrugs and next thing the two boys are kissing. But it's this fiery dragon kiss that lets Harry taste the fag and the blood in Louis' mouth.

It's not fireworks. It's not love. It's not the perfect story/movie kiss, because who the hell would want that perfect kiss to remind them of dirt and sadness and all the sour tastes of alcohol and morning breath?

And again, time does not slow down for thunderstorms and hurricanes as they destroy each other. 

But maybe Harry doesn't feel as much pain this time.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time Harry and Louis meet up they're inside. 

Louis invited Harry out for coffee the night of their first kiss, and that just kept building up and up until they were on their seventh date and then their eleventh and then their twentieth and now Harry thinks it's safe to consider them boyfriends. 

He still feels pain at their kisses. He hasn't figured out why yet. Sometimes he just feels pain for no reason at all. He's sure plenty of people think it's a ploy for attention, but he would rather never receive attention again if he has to suffer from this. 

It's heart-wrenching, is the thing. 

Never physical pain, never mental. Always emotional. And always during something that could be considered romantic just because he and Louis did it together and they're in a relationship so of course everything they do has to be considered romantic, right? 

When they're cuddled up on the sofa, watching bad nighttime TV and sipping tea. Harry feels pain. 

When they're walking outside and holding hands and someone looks at them. Pain. 

The first night Louis stays at his house. Pain. 

He doesn't know why it keeps occurring and he wishes that it would stop. He knows Louis well enough by then that to know of this pain Harry feels would make him hate himself even more than the hurricane already does.

~ 

They're on another date when it happens again. 

Louis is holding his hand in a crowded movie theater and they're eating popcorn and the movie's shit but he payed for the tickets so they're going to sit there and finish it, goddammit. 

That's when the pain starts. 

In his heart. He can hear the drum beat keeping him alive in his ears, feel it in every part of his body. He imagines that his eyes are moving from the vibrations it is causing. 

"Babe?" Louis' voice is so far away. 

Harry begins to breathe improperly. He breathes like his mouth is being clogged with cotton and he can only access his life-saving oxygen through a coffee stirrer.

"Harry?" Harry's grip on Louis' hand eases until he can't feel it anymore. Can't feel him can't feel him can't feel anything can't feel can't feel can't can't can't 

"Harry?!" Harry's eyes roll until he can't see and his body starts to lose feeling.

He doesn't realize he's on the ground until his Louis is shouting something about an ambulance. 

Then his world is gone. 

~ 

Harry wakes up and he thinks that the world is still gone. 

It's too white and Louis isn't there until suddenly he is and somehow that makes everything worse. 

"Harry? Harry baby are you okay what happened why did you freak out why aren't you talking to me baby what's wrong just tell me what's the matter baby please-" 

Harry passes out again. 

~ 

When he wakes up again, Louis is there with a man in a white coat.

"Go away." Harry groans. 

The man starts spewing a bunch of bullshitty feel-better crap that makes Harry want to dry-heave. 

Finally the man makes Louis leave and he makes Harry tell him about time and thunderstorms and hurricanes and pain. 

He slaps a pretty white label on an ugly orange bottle and calls them anti-depressants. He slaps an ugly green label on a pretty white bottle and calls them anxiety meds. He tells Louis to make sure he takes them both daily before he's allowed to leave the hospital. 

~ 

Harry refuses to take them. 

Louis has resorted to grinding them up and slipping them in his coffee and tea. Whatever food he can. Harry has started noticing. 

"I don't want to take the pills."

"They'l help you, darling."

"I don't want them." 

"Baby, please. I just don't want you to freak out like you did at the movies."

"I hate them." 

"Why, love? They're meant to help." 

"They don't." 

"Maybe we should go back to the doctor-" 

"No." 

"Take them for me?" Harry always has to give in then. 

~

But sometimes Louis forgets that Harry isn't the only one with problems. 

Louis cries at night and he tells Harry that he feels crazy some days and on other days like he can take over the world and on some days he wishes that he could die. Harry makes Louis come to the psychologist with him and suddenly they're not just a couple, they're a crazy couple. Now Harry has to mix in Louis' mood stabilizer with his anti-depressants in his food and coffee and tea. 

He watches Louis do the same for him.

It's such a sad sight. 

~ 

They can't drink while they're on their meds so Harry and Louis have become complete smokers. They share one in the morning with their pill-flavored coffee and in the afternoon if they get the same lunch and before dinner and over dinner and after dinner. 

They share more fiery dragon kisses only this time they're not outside a dingy old pub. They have beautiful conversations over cigarettes. Stuff about bills and work and shit too, but also the universe and where they'll end up and Harry's obsession with time and Louis' compulsion to steal and their shared fondness for the mechanics behind their sex.

It's nicotine, not marijuana. 

The conversation changes every time they talk but neither boy minds. Sometimes it's better to just leave something to be the way it is in that moment. 

~ 

Harry finds that he never really gets better, and neither does Louis. But that's okay. They love each other, for all their faults and quirks and strange mind behaviors. 

He and Louis are cuddled up in bed, sharing a post-sex cigarette. 

Harry has his arm around Louis and Louis has himself nestled against Harry's side. Louis controls the cancer stick so he decides when Harry gets his turn, but he's not selfish. 

They're naked. Talking more about what it would be like if it was possible to start fires underwater and how strange it's felt to be out of school when they're only in their twenties and how they can prove that the other boy is truly an angel. 

"Then people would someone how smoke underwater and screw things up for the fish, too." Louis comments. 

"And whoever ate the fish afterwards." Harry adds. 

"We don't even have degrees and there are people our age with a master's in something." Harry sighs. 

"Yeah, but they're going to be swamped in debt after they're out of eight more years of school." Louis scoffs. 

"You have wings hidden in your skin, I'm certain of it." Harry whispers, when the last of their cigarette is little more than ash and ember. 

"Have you seen yourself, mr. angel boy with a voice like sin?" Louis stubs the cigarette out in their overflowing ashtray. 

They fall asleep in a nice cuddly pose, Harry tucked beneath Louis so he could be the little spoon and Louis could feel like he was protecting him.

It's not perfect, but it's them. 


End file.
